


I Fold

by halfthewords (Sierra)



Series: manipulashipping drabbles [3]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 01:22:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3190544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sierra/pseuds/halfthewords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His name isn't Mutou Yuugi, but he can be persuasive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Fold

**Author's Note:**

> Written in mid-'09 after reading a Toby Barlow book in a similar style.

There is almost never a time Anzu can recall  
of her teenage years  
that was not influenced by a card game.  
The parts in-between, the scuffles and the  
grimy hands and knees  
of Jounouchi, the fool,  
the major trump of _Major Arcana_. 

 

She leaves Domino,  
her boots laced to the knee and suitcase  
lumped somewhere in the cargohold,  
with the rest  
of the fugitives.  
It's too bad, she thinks to herself,  
one heel on the boarding ramp, then two,  
that she's never liked card games,  
just the people who happen to play them.

 

Four wired nights in a hotel room in Manhattan,  
and she hasn't been this alone since  
her parents split,  
halved the attorney's fees and the furniture.  
'America, the land of dreams,'  
she can still hear the travel agent saying,  
coaxing the raised pen to  
touch paper, and throw her life into the mix.

 

By the sixth night, she regrets leaving.  
She doesn't drink, but she drains two glasses  
of the most expensive champagne on the menu,  
and picks up the phone.

 

*

 

Isis finds his apartment empty,  
Rishid unconscious in his reading chair,  
and a bottle of chloroform  
on the coffee table. 

 

*

 

Anzu stares into the night, nursing a glass  
that's become her source of companionship, refill after refill.  
A city of a thousand lights, the roar of planes  
and cars and buses and trains.  
A city of a thousand lights  
but she's only looking for one.

 

It's a big thing, what she's asking him to do.  
She uses the world clock on her mp3 player  
to predict exactly when her problems  
will only complicate themselves.

 

She doesn't answer her cell when Malik calls.  
He pressures the stuttering clerk at the front desk until  
he gets what he needs, finds out what he wants to know,  
and rides the elevator to the top floor.  
The spare key isn't supposed to leave  
the envelope in the safe,  
and his name isn't Mutou Yuugi, but he can be persuasive.  
He finds her curled asleep in soft robes  
on the padded windowsill.  
Her forehead pressed to the glass,  
fogged over from her breath.  
Malik hides it, tucks it away in one of the bathroom drawers,  
then he returns to the dark room,  
pulls up a chair to the window,  
and waits. 

 

She looks through his bag,  
the only bag he has with him.  
Later, mouth to mouth, she wants to know,  
"Where are your things?"  
He can't find a way to answer that won't frighten her away again.  
"On the wrong flight," he says. "They said they'd forward it to New York."

 

Time is too short when it's wanted  
and too long  
when it's forced.  
The collapse of the lines of her stomach  
are not forgotten, nor the hisses  
he likes to push  
from her lungs. He relearns her that night  
\- neck shoulders hips thighs -  
with just two fingers,  
his tongue,  
and a sense of appreciation for what  
he has missed  
in four years. 

 

*

 

A quick shower in the morning  
a new shampoo, scented soap  
and a crisp white towel. 

It's like  
Malik's there with her, slippery hands  
pushing her hair back, lips  
grinning and kissing and sighing his many frustrations  
with her, with the world.

A world of good, a world  
of bad. 

Fast-forward five years, she  
wants to go back. Unsign the contract,  
unsign everything. Travel papers and passports  
and sheets for Chicago on the Upper East Side.

It's like  
she hasn't left Domino yet  
it's the day after Kaiba's wild goose chase for power  
ends on the beachfront  
and Malik is still standing there, smiling.


End file.
